1790, and revolutionary
Paris was a city in turmoil. On the night of 19 February, in
a final dramatic gesture of despair, Jean-Baptiste Krumpholtz
threw himself from the Pont-Neuf into the Seine and drowned.
Whether his suicide was a desperate response to his wife’s
infidelity, or whether it was the result of the infinitely stressful
situation brought about by the ever-burgeoning threat of instability
and civil unrest in the city, will never really be known; but
whereas most authoritative publications agree on the date of
his death, the date and place of Krumpholtz’s
birth have been the subject of many inaccurate dictionary entries,
and only very recently has it been possible to determine the
truth with absolute certainty.

Jan Křtitel Krumpholtz
was born in Prague on 5 August 1747. Autobiographical
information published after his death reveals that his mother
was a harpist who, he said ‘had no inheritance to leave
me other than her passion for the harp’; his father was
a military bandsman attached, like so many other Bohemian musicians
of the time, to a French regiment. The young Krumpholtz travelled
to France with his father, who taught him to play the horn, the
violin and the viola, but he longed to have composition lessons,
and longed to play the harp. Aged fourteen, he reached Paris
for the first time and was able to have some lessons with Christian
Hochbrucker (1733-1799), nephew of the inventor of the pedal
harp. Next, he moved on to Lille, again making an unsuccessful
attempt to study composition, but five years later, having no
means of making a living except by playing the horn, he returned
to Prague. With his passion for the harp once more re-kindled,
he took it up again. Moving on to Vienna, he was influenced and
encouraged in his attempts at composition by Georg Christoph
Wagenseil (1715-1777), and it was in Vienna that he wrote
his first concerto for the harp, entrusting the scoring to his
compatriot Vàclav Pichl (1741-1805). In July 1773,
Krumpholtz’s performance of this concerto at Esterház
so impressed Haydn that he offered him an engagement there and
then. It was as J B Krumpholtz that he signed his indenture on
1 August, though he may well already have been using this form
of his Christian name for some time. He stayed at Esterház
for three years, and during this time he worked with Haydn on
his sixth concerto.

In the summer of 1776,
he took a two-year leave of absence, and in the autumn he arrived
at Metz, where, in the harpsichord workshop of Simon Gilbert
in the Fournirue, adjoining the precinct of the cathedral of St
Etienne, his life was to take a surprising turn, because it was
there that he met both his future wives! He married Simon Gilbert’s
daughter, Marguerite, and they arrived in Paris on 14 February
1777, taking with them Anne-Marie, the brilliant ten-year old
harpist daughter of Christian Steckler (1746-1838), a cabinet-maker
employed at Gilbert’s
workshops, and Krumpholtz’s contemporary.

The family arrived
in Paris at an auspicious time. Late eighteenth-century Paris
was the centre of the harp world, and Marie Antoinette herself
being a harpist, harp makers, performers, composers and teachers
converged on the French capital. Krumpholtz thrived in this atmosphere,
and soon became known for his talents as harpist, composer, teacher
and inventor. On Christmas Day 1778, he played his 5th concerto
at the Concert Spirituel,
and subsequently a large number of compositions – solos,
duos and concertos – flowed from his pen. Mostly dedicated
to aristocratic patrons and pupils, they were variously
published by Cousineau and Naderman, both of whom were also harpmakers,
Naderman being harpmaker to Marie Antoinette. Interestingly,
in 1778, Krumpholtz dedicated his Receuil de douze
préludes to Mademoiselle de Guines, for whom, in
April of that same year, Mozart had written his Concerto for
Flute and Harp. It is tempting to conjecture that Jean-Baptiste
Krumpholtz may have been her harp teacher. Krumpholtz
and Naderman lived very close to one another in the rue d’Argenteuil
on the Butte St Roch; in 1778, both Dussek and Mozart were also
their near neighbours. Naderman began to show himself willing
to incorporate Krumpholtz’s ideas for improvements to the
instrument into the harps he himself made.

Carved, gilded, and
with soundboard decorations in the Vernis Martin style, the harp
had already become a pre-requisite of the most elegant Parisian
salons, but aesthetic considerations having prevailed over practicality,
there was room for great improvement, both in the construction
of the instruments and in their mechanical functioning. A major
problem was that their mechanism had only a single action, and
each pedal could be depressed only once, raising the string by
a semitone; their ‘open’ key
was Eb major, and they were limited to playing in eight major
keys and five minor ones. One would have assumed that Krumpholtz’s
favourite key of Eb minor would be completely unobtainable, but
in his late Sonate comme scène dans le style pathétique he
achieves the virtually impossible by the use of ‘homophones’ or
enharmonic equivalents, substituting F# for Gb, B natural for
Cb, C# for Db and so on. He accomplished this by setting
the pedals in advance.
His purely practical improvements included a pedal-operated damping
mechanism (see ill. in Dr Spinelli’s article WHC Review) and
a pedal-operated swell mechanism, both of which were developed
and put into practice by J H Naderman, and officially approved
by the Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1787.

Other ‘improvements’ suggested
by his fertile imagination proved less practical, even, in some
instances, almost farcical. That Krumpholtz was a brilliant,
but excitable, nervous and intense man – possibly even
exhibiting depressive tendencies – can
be sensed from the portrait owned by Berlin’s State Musical
Instrument Museum, which, unfortunately, it has not proved possible
to reproduce here. Another maker he approached with great enthusiasm
was Sebastien Erard, this time with his ideas concerning frequent
string breakages and the unreliability of intonation caused by
the defects of the pedal-operated hook mechanism. Erard’s
first concern was to circumvent the harp’s limitations,
observing in a letter that ‘the mechanism of the instrument
is too complicated; I have changed and much simplified it; this
means it doesn’t break strings like before.’ The
result of Erard’s experiments was the ‘fork’ mechanism
which he invented, and which is, of course, still in use today.

Meanwhile,
Krumpholtz’s young pupil, Anne-Marie Steckler
made sensational progress. Aged 13, on 13 December 1779,
she had played before Marie Antoinette at the concert spirituel;
in 1781, reported as having ‘an extraordinary talent’ and
being ‘a phenomenon’ she played five concerts in
her home town of Metz, and by 1783, the sixteen-year-old was
playing the difficult 5th and 6th concertos of Krumpholtz to
great acclaim at important Parisian venues. Here it is, however,
that scandal appears to rear its ugly head! Marguerite Krumpholtz had
died in Paris at the beginning of January 1783. A bare seven
weeks later, on 26 February 1783, Jean-Baptiste Krumpholtz married
Anne-Marie Steckler. She was sixteen. Aged thirty-six,
he was one year younger than her father. The following October,
billed as Madame Krumpholtz-Steckler, she brazenly defied convention
by playing in public when eight months pregnant, attracting adverse
press comment as to either the wisdom or propriety of such an
appearance.

Their first child,
Louis-Armand-Jean-Baptiste, was born in November 1783, soon to
be followed by Charlotte-Esprit (1785) and Antoine-Philippe (1787).
All the children were baptised in the parish church of St Roch. Persistent
rumours about her departure for England as the mistress of a
fellow musician may well be unsubstantiated, but in early 1788 ‘Madame
Krumpholtz’ was already
playing in London, where, on 30 April The Times reported that ‘this
Lady’s (the capital letter is original) wonderful execution
is universally admired, and the public have to regret that her
talents are only to be heard in private.’ She was
22 years old, and her fee for a private party was 40 guineas! She
was featured at Haydn’s benefit concert at the Drury Lane
Theatre on 13 May, played duos with Dussek at the Hanover Square
Rooms on 2 June, and on 13 June she appeared at a benefit
concert for Cramer. The following year, she was again a sensational
success, making 17 London appearances between March and June
1789. Her own benefit concert was held on Friday, 15 May.

Meanwhile,
in Paris, Krumpholtz mused on his wife’s talents.
In his autobiographical sketch, he wrote: “I am reproached
for neglecting public performance. It is true that I have abandoned
it almost totally. If this is a fault, I must admit that it is
becoming a new source of pleasure for me. I have become too demanding
and perhaps too hard on my own account, seeing myself surpassed
by the playing of my wife: nature has endowed her with unparalleled
facility. Her playing combines strength and fluency; and what
is more valuable is that she is able to imbue her performances
with the expression and feeling which transform music into a
veritable language. I leave her to express my ideas. When I was
performing, it was impossible for me to judge the effect; now
that I listen, nothing escapes me. So from the point of view
of composition, I gain what I have lost from the point of view
of performance. I am no longer a better performer than the average
music-lover. I no longer play better than my pupils; and because
I have rehearsed my wife in the same passages twenty different
ways, I know better than anyone what the fingers can do, and
I know the limitations and capabilities of the instrument. I
am still criticised for appearing to look for difficulties; this
is wrong; my only concern is to make known all the possibilities
and resources of the harp. The instrument has its faults, but
when it is understood properly, it is inferior to none. Perhaps
what the instrument needs is another dozen or so able composers.
All I have attempted to do is to push back those limitations
with which people wish to burden the harp, and to extend its
boundaries.”

It is to his pupil,
Jean-Marie Plane (b.1774), that we are indebted for preserving
Krumpholtz’s memoirs.
It is thus that Plane ends his own recollections of his teacher. “These
are all the details which Krumpholtz has left us on the subject
of his education, and I have reported them faithfully, because
they must, of necessity, interest everyone who is concerned with
the harp, and they have, in any case, a direct bearing on the
study of the instrument. Every line reflects that modest attitude
which is the true indication of genius, and which should always
serve as a model to performers”.

Continuing, Plane says “It
remains for me to add a word or two on the subject of his final
misfortunes, the memory of which is ever present in my thoughts.
Some years had passed, during which, being prey to an intense
jealousy which allowed him no respite, Krumpholtz finally passed
from love to devotion; and it was in religion that he searched
for the consolation he could no longer find in worldly affairs.
The misfortune which had so long pursued him caused him to choose
as a guide an ignorant and fanatical priest, whose baneful advice,
rather than reassure his deranged conscience, only served to
exacerbate his doubts.

We were just reaching
that memorable epoch which saw the beginning of the French Revolution.
The first events, which took place before his very eyes, succeeded
in confusing his poor brain. Finally, no longer able to bear
the burden of the problems of his life, he brought it to an early
end.”

On 11 March, 1790,
The Argus, a London newspaper, honoured him with the following
obituary:

All the musical amateurs in
Europe will be afflicted to hear of the untimely end of this
celebrated performer on the harp. He
was not merely regarded as the improver, but the creator
of the brilliant execution which has lately distinguished that
delightful instrument.

.......
KRUMPHOLTZ, has ever been heard with the utmost admiration by
connoisseurs. His pieces were original and enchanting; he imitated
no man, but his style of composition as well as of execution
peculiar to himself, attained to a degree of unrivalled excellence.
How painful it is to add, that he lately drowned himself in the
Seine, to which desperate act he was impelled by the perfidy
of a faithless wife, a pupil too of his own, and whom he had
always most passionately loved.

Thus a man, whose talents
secured him universal admiration, could not fix the heart of
his fair inconstant; and we may apply to Mr. KRUMPHOLTZ, what
has often been observed of illustrious characters, that the same
sensibility which assisted their genius, was often the bane of
their repose, it promoted the glory of the art, but caused the
misery of the artist. So true is the poet’s remark, that ‘Refined
sense is but refined woe.’

As far as is known, ‘the
celebrated Madame Krumpholtz’never
again set foot on French soil. The ‘famous woman on the
harp’ stayed in London where she earned her living as a
performer and fashionable teacher. She sat to her portrait by
Richard Cosway, and she also acted as an agent for Sébastien
Erard, obtaining commissions for the sale of harps sold on her
recommendation to the rich and famous, many of whose daughters
she numbered among her pupils. In 1796, the French emigrée
gossip, Laurette d’Alpy, bitchily intimated that Anne-Marie
was something of a courtesan, that she was very fond of a glass
of wine, that at that moment she was madly in love with the composer
Giacomo Ferrari, and that her air of sweet innocence concealed
every known vice. A long-standing affair with Charles Sturt,
MP for Bridport in Dorset, was brought to light in a famous case
heard before Justice Kenyon at the Court of the King’s
Bench Westminster in late May, 1801. Here it was revealed that
Mr. Sturt had “lived for years in a state of adulterous
concubinage with Madame Krumpholtz, a celebrated player on the
harp”. One of their several children had been named Henry
Sturt Krumpholtz after his father.

She seemed to have
been involved in another court case in 1807, as on 24 August
Erard’s
Order Books note payments made on her behalf to several well-known
lawyers, amounting to the sum of £176-11-8. Little more
is heard of her in England after this time, but a census register
for Metz in 1807 records opposite her father’s name the
information that “he
has a daughter who has lived for the last twenty years in England.”